USDA’s latest weekly export sales report held mostly encouraging data for the week ending August 27. Corn exports led all grain sales last week, thanks to strong new crop sales. Soybean exports landed on the high end of analyst estimates. Wheat sales also made it to the upper range of trade estimates, although week-over-week volume saw a moderate decline.

For the last full week in the 2019/20 marketing year, corn exports saw 3.9 million bushels in old crop sales plus another 94.1 million bushels in new crop sales for a total tally of 98.0 million bushels. Analysts were expecting to see total sales fall somewhere between 57.1 million and 102.4 million bushels. Cumulative totals this marketing year have reached 1.678 billion bushels, which is 13% below last year’s pace.

Corn export shipments were much more disappointing, spilling 55% below the prior four-week average to 18.3 million bushels. Mexico was the No. 1 destination, with 8.8 million bushels. China, Jamaica, Japan and Trinidad rounded out the top five.

Soybean export sales are also transitioning quickly toward the upcoming 2020/21 marketing year, turning in just 3.2 million bushels in old crop sales, while new crop sales climbed to 64.8 million bushels, for a total of 68.0 million bushels. That was good enough to make it to the upper end of trade estimates, which ranged between 36.7 million and 69.8 million bushels. Cumulative totals for the 2019/20 marketing year are very unlikely to match last year’s pace, reaching 1.617 billion bushels.

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Soybean export shipments slid 11% below the prior four-week average, to 32.3 million bushels. China accounted for more than half of that total, with 17.1 million bushels. Egypt, the Netherlands, Mexico and Germany filled out the top five.

Wheat export sales drifted 23% below last week’s tally but stayed 4% above the prior four-week average, with 21.5 million bushels. That was also good enough to stay on the high end of trade guesses, which ranged between 12.9 million and 22.0 million bushels. Cumulative totals for the 2020/21 marketing year have fallen slightly behind last year’s pace, with 104.7 million bushels.

Wheat export shipments fell 25% lower compared to last week and 9% below the prior four-week average, with 17.8 million bushels. Nigeria was the No. 1 destination, with 3.0 million bushels, followed by Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia and Japan.

Click here to see more highlights from the latest USDA export report, covering August 21 through August 27.